Another Former Russian Intelligence Officer Poisoned in the UK (22)

Current expulsion tally sits at 139, including NATO and UN expulsions, and several other EU nations may further contribute to the tally. Russian propaganda machine is now mostly producing a firehose of vitriol, arguing Russian victimhood and Western conspiracy, led by of course by the arch-demons, the US and the UK. While Russian propagandists are declaring this to be a “New Cold War”, Higgins observed that the Putin regime’s behavior is much more like the early Stalin era Soviet regime, that conducted numerous assassinations of emigres during the 1920s (and later). Patten’s report on the global scope of unexplained deaths of Russian emigres supports that conclusion. Belkovsky argues onEkho Moskvi that this political confrontation is exactly what Putin needs and wants domestically – in the end anything that rallies “robotic ultranationalists hell-bent on polonium-poisoning the world into submission” will be seen to be good for the regime – that it might accelerate Russia’s descent into eventual bankruptcy and irrelevance matters not, as Volodin so eloquently argued in 2014 that “Putin is Russia; without Putin, there’s no Russia” [Noting that Volodin was effectively paraphrasing Hess’ famous “Hitler ist Deutschland – Deutschland ist Hitler” line].

The parallels with the Third Reich were aptly articulated by UK SECDEF Williamson who labeled the Russian social media effort as the ‘new Lord Haw‑Haws’. Some excellent observations by SECSTATE Johnson. Much analysis and media commentary on the expulsions. Also interesting is the list of abstainers in the EU and Western camp, none of whom are surprises – nearly every single instance involves a major financial relationship with Russia. Much mirth over New Zealand’s claim it cannot expel any Russian spies, as it cannot find any – media mostly forget to mention that New Zealand is attempting to negotiate an FTA with Russia, so it just like so many smaller EU nations have been exposed to the corrosive effects of Russian money.

Putin has long sought another Krymnash to rally the “zombified masses”, and as Pastukhov at UCL very recently argued, has adeptly tapped into the “collective unconscious” of the Russian public, in this instance stimulating their xenophobia and resentment of the much more successful West. So Russian confrontation and escalatory behavior can be expected to continue over this dispute for as long as Putin can milk it for what it is worth. As we have observed with the Krymnash / Novorossiya and Syrian campaigns, medium and long-term costs to Russia are quite irrelevant. Live for the political moment – this is oh so much like Hitler’s propaganda-centric decision track record it beggars belief, the UK is indeed very much on target with their comparisons.

Russian media on Tuesday shared the view that Western countries’ coordinated expulsions of Russian diplomats following the poisoning in Britain of a former spy have plunged Moscow’s relations with the West into a new “Cold War”. Twenty-four countries — including 17 member-states of

Bush’s decision, questioned by even some American allies, opened the way, in Moscow’s view, to a free-for-all in international relations that has left the United States and Russia struggling to recover the trust developed by President Ronald Reagan and the last Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, in the 1980s. In a state of the nation address in February, Putin unveiled what he described as a new generation of “invincible” long-range nuclear missiles but, speaking later in an interview ..

The attempted assassination of Sergei and Yulia Skripal — a father and daughter poisoned by a Russian-made nerve agent earlier this month in Salisbury, England — appears to be part of a global retribution campaign linked to at least 16 other suspicious deaths worldwide. From Qatar to London to Kiev to Washington, D.C., Vladimir Putin’s rivals share a common malady: Brutally short lifespans and a susceptibility to sudden cardiac arrest without any prior indication of heart disease.

Russian media have reacted with sarcasm and anger to the mass expulsion of diplomats from the US, Canada and some European states. The main national TV channels unanimously echoed the Kremlin line, suggesting that the incident in Salisbury was being used merely as a pretext. More than 100 Russian diplomats from more than 20 countries were expelled in the wake of the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter.

MOSCOW: Russian media on Tuesday shared the view that Western countries’ coordinated expulsions of Russian diplomats following the poisoning in Britain of a former spy have plunged Moscow’s relations with the West into a new “Cold War”. Twenty-four countries — including 17 member-states of the European Union — have expelled more than 100 Russian diplomats over the attempted murder in England of Russian national Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Izvestia pro-Kremlin daily denounced what it called a “flash mob”, while Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily stressed that “never before have there been such coordinated expulsions”. “Relationships between Russia and the West are entering a period of an all-out Cold War,” political analyst Fedor Lukyanov wrote in Vedomosti business daily. “The expulsions will be particularly destructive for Russian-American relations,” he said, adding that he expects the West to issue “much more severe economic sanctions” against Russia in the future. “This is not an end of escalation. It will most probably worsen.” Kommersant business daily wrote that these “measures of unprecedented severity … are yet another round of aggravation of tensions in Russian-Western relations”. Political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky said Russia’s foreign policy has been fired by “the concentrated energy of self-destruction” since 2014, the year when Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, incurring retaliatory economic sanctions from the West. “The worse the relationships between Russia and the West are, the better it is for the president”, with Vladimir Putin’s domestic legitimacy propped up by the confrontation with the West, Belkovsky wrote in a blog for the popular Echo of Moscow radio station.

WHITE HOUSE — Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday his government will respond to a U.S. order for 60 Russian diplomats accused of being spies to leave the United States within a week. Twenty-two other countries, including France, Germany and Poland, have also expelled a total of 77 Russian “intelligence personnel,” according to the White House. That list does not include Australia, which announced [Tuesday] it is expelling two “undeclared intelligence officials.” Lavrov blamed the mass expulsions on “colossal pressure” by the United States.

The Kremlin’s ambassador to the US made the extraordinary claims as he accused both countries of ’emotional deafness’ by expelling diplomats as the country mourned the deaths in the Kemerovo shopping mall blaze

Russia officially blames the UK for the assassination attempt on Col Skripal and his daughter. Demand? “These statements leave us no choice but to forcefully demand full information on the progress of the investigation, as well as the disclosure of the program for the production of warfare agents in Porton Down.” …the British side actually…

Russia has documents indicating that Novichok gas was being developed in the United States, said Igor Rybalchenko, head of the laboratory for chemical and analytical control at the Russian Ministry of Defense, during a broadcast on the Russia-1 television channel, RIA Novosti has reports. According to Rybalchenko, Russian specialists found informational records regarding an organophosphorus substance with a “strong lethal effect” dating back to 1998 in the Spectral Library of the US National Standards Bureau.“Now it has turned out that, judging by the name of that agent, it was Novichok A234,” Rybalchenko said. He noted that members of the US Army Chemical Research and Development Center established the connection to the database. According to Rybalchenko, formulas published in a book by chemist Vil Mirzayanov, who emigrated to the US, would allow such a compound to be synthesized “in any prepared laboratory.” Former GRU (Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate) intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were previously found poisoned and unconscious in the center of the town of Salisbury on March 4.

Russian embassies in Croatia, Romania and Macedonia have strongly criticised the three countries’ decision to expel diplomats to show solidarity with Britain in the wake of the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. Albania, Croatia, Macedonia and Romania joined other EU countries in expelling some Russian diplomats on Monday. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow called the wave of expulsions “an unfriendly step.” “We express our strong protest in the wake of the decision taken by a number of EU and NATO member countries to expel Russian diplomats,” a ministry statement read. “The provocative gesture of the so-called solidarity of these countries with London, which blindly followed the British authorities in the so-called ‘Skripal case’ and which never got around to sort out the circumstances of the incident, is a continuation of the confrontational policy to escalate the situation,” it added. The Russian embassy in Skopje on Tuesday warned the Macedonian government of “consequences” for deciding to expel a Russian diplomat in solidarity with Britain. Faced with a barrage of questions from journalists, the Russian embassy in Bucharest issued a very short statement, labelling Romania’s decision to declare a Russian diplomat persona non grata “an expression of madness”. The Russian embassy in Zagreb also expressed regret over the decision by Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic to expel a Russian diplomat, assessing the move as “hostile”. “We deeply regret that the Croatian side… has made a swift and ill-considered decision, the consequences of which will adversely affect the further development of our bilateral relations, including their trade and economic component,” the Russian embassy said in a statement. The Russian embassy in Albania, where the government decided to expel two Russian diplomats, did not comment on the situation, but republished the statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow.

British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said on Monday that the world was united behind Britain’s stance over the poisoning of a former Russian spy and that patience was wearing thin with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Thousands of suspected pro-Russia robotic accounts producing bogus web messages about the Salisbury attack are the Nazi propagandists of the 21st century and must be confronted, the defence secretary has said. Gavin Williamson said that the government may seek to talk with social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook about ways to combat this kind of information warfare, which he likened to the wartime “Germany calling” broadcasts of William Joyce, better known as Lord Haw-Haw. He stressed the importance of protecting free speech, including the ability to criticise the government and challenge its assessment that the Kremlin was behind the attempted assassination of Sergei and Yulia Skripal.

LONDON (Reuters) – British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said coordinated expulsions of Russian diplomats announced on Monday showed that the use of nerve toxin on a former Russian spy on English soil had brought to a head international frustrations with Moscow. The United States said it would expel 60 Russian diplomats, and Canada and 20 European states including France, Germany and Ukraine together expelled over 50 more, to punish the Kremlin for the attack on ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, accepting Britain’s analysis that Moscow was to blame. “The reason they got it was because they suddenly realized that this could happen in their own towns, in their own cities,” Johnson said. “They suddenly could see that this was a new kind of threat and that Russia was behaving in a particularly reckless way, and particularly contemptuous of civilized norms.” “For many other governments, what happened in Salisbury sort of crystallized their own frustrations, their own disappointments with the way the Russian state has been behaving,” Johnson said in the interview. He rejected the suggestion that the measures were leading towards a new and dangerous Cold War with Moscow. “It’s very, very important to stress that our quarrel is not with the people of Russia, not with Russian culture, civilization … Our quarrel is exclusively with the Kremlin and the current administration … “The objective of this global collective action is for the world to signal that the doubts and fears about that Kremlin action have crystallized,” Johnson said. “Russia is a great, great country, but it doesn’t have to be great in this way, and what the world is saying to Russia today is that particular style of behavior, … these endless provocations — we’ve had enough of them.”

The world is at a turning point in the fight to curb President Putin’s “reckless ambitions”, Boris Johnson has said after the largest collective expulsion of Russian spies in history.More than 20 countries announced that they would banish Russian intelligence officers yesterday following the use of

More than 20 countries have expelled Russian diplomats in retaliation for the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal with nerve agent in Salisbury, southern England. The nations joined Britain in blaming Russia for the attempted assassination on March 4, which was the first offensive use of nerve agent in Europe since World War II. Russia has repeatedly denied their involvement. Here are all the countries and intergovernmental bodies that have expelled Russian officials over the attack:

Stoltenberg says, despite the expulsions, Russia will still have a diplomatic mission of 20 people at alliance headquarters in Brussels and that will allow Russia to keep essential contacts with NATO members.

Moldova’s foreign ministry has ordered three Russian diplomats to leave the former Soviet republic within seven days. The foreign ministry summoned Russia’s Ambassador Farit Muhametshin on Tuesday to inform him of the decision, which followed similar expulsions of Russians from many other Western countries Monday. The moves were a gesture of solidarity with Britain over the nerve agent attack on a former spy in Britain. A statement said the attack was “a threat on the collective security and international law.” Moldova’s pro-Western government is seeking closer relations with the U.S. and the European Union. Last year Moldova expelled five Russian diplomats, accusing them of espionage.

Russian diplomats’ expulsion from the USA and other states is a reaction on a “thoughtless nerve agent attack on a British citizen and his daughter on the territory of Britain” as to Jon Huntsman, U.S. Ambassador to Russia, said in the interview for Kommersant. He stressed that Great Britain is U.S. close ally. That is why Washington could not leave such actions beyond attention. “We convey a message – if you treat our friends and allies like that, the response reaction is inevitable,” the Ambassador stated. Earlier, the USA, Canada and 15 EU member states informed about their decision to expel Russian diplomats. Ukraine joined the sanctions and expelled 13 Russian diplomats from the country.

The White House is continuing to punish Russia by imposing trade sanctions and, this week, expelling diplomats. But what’s missing so far is any explicit condemnation from U.S. President Donald Trump himself.

America’s most sweeping expulsion of Russian diplomats since the Cold War may have seemed like a dramatic escalation in Washington’s response to Moscow, but the groundwork for a more confrontational U.S. posture had been taking shape for months — in plain sight.

President Trump’s decision on Monday to expel 60 Russian intelligence officers from the United States is welcome and apt. It is a proper response in support of an ally to Russia’s March 4 poisoning of a British intelligence agent, his daughter, and a police officer.

Bill O’Reilly told Newsmax TV during an appearance on Newsmax Now, President Donald Trump’s Russia strategy is in wait-and-see mode as the United States continues to put pressure on its Cold War foe regarding several issues.

The Trump administration expelled 60 Russian diplomats and closed the Russian consulate in Seattle to help block Moscow from spying on U.S. Naval Base Kitsap, the home port of U.S. Navy nuclear submarines in Washington State.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz stated that Austria would not expel its Russian diplomats over the Skripal poisoning incident in Britain. Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Julia were poisoned nearly to death near London with a Soviet-era-made nerve agent known as Novichok. The British government highly suspects that Russia was responsible for this attempted assassination on British soil. Chancellor Kurz made his country’s position clear with a post on Twitter. “We support the clear statement of the European Council and the decision to recall the head of the EU delegation to Russia, but as a neutral country we will not expel diplomats. Rather, we want to be the builders of a bridge between East and West and keep channels of negotiations with Russia open.” The US government decided to expel 60 Russian diplomats from their country and to close the Russian Consulate General in Seattle. Twenty-one other nations expelled 135 Russian diplomats following the US’s lead.

With Russia in Israel’s “backyard,” Jerusalem must do what is in its interest – not what is in the interests of others – regarding whether it should join other western countries in expelling Russian diplomats over the recent poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain, Construction Minister Yoav Gallant said Tuesday, The Jerusalem Post reported. Asked by The Jerusalem Post at a briefing sponsored by The Israel Project whether he thought Israel should join a long list of other western countries and expel Russian diplomats, Gallant said that Israel is not seen by the Russians as an enemy for a number of reasons. “First of all because we share some ideas and interests,” said Gallant, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet who will speak at The Jerusalem Post’s conference in New York on April 29. “Secondly, because there are more than a million immigrants who have come from Russia to Israel, and the Russian administration views them as citizens, or old citizens, or veterans of of Russia. And thirdly, we have to remember what are the proportions and what are the distances.” For Israel, Gallant said, Russia is now in its backyard. And while Israel should “behave as part of the Western world,” it should also be proud “that we can negotiate, talk and live side-by-side with the Russians.” “This is what we are doing,” he continued, adding that so far Israel have maneuvered carefully and well in very complicated situation where the Russians “are here.”

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said her country wants to express support for the UK over the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal but admits it can’t find any Russian spies to kick out.

Ireland is likely to join more than 20 countries in expelling Russian diplomats following the nerve agent attack on a former spy and his daughter in Britain. It is understood that the Irish government is considering expelling at least one Russian diplomat after analysing intelligence given to the t

Australia said on Tuesday it will expel two Russian diplomats in response to a nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy in Britain that the British government has blamed on Moscow and hinted at a possible boycott of the World Cup.

THE US’ decision to expel 60 diplomats was a “declaration of war”, a former MP has said. George Galloway hit out at US President Donald Trump’s order following the attempted assassination of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. The pair remain in a critical condition after they were found in a catatonic state on a park bench in Salisbury earlier this month.